


vigil

by Snickfic



Category: Original Work
Genre: Elves, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:41:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23841697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic
Summary: “Elven men don’t conceive unless there is some great trial coming to us, a time when we’ll be in need of miracles. This babe is meant for heroism and hardship, and I—” Taneth broke off, unable to continue. He took another long breath of that bracing air that smelled of home, of childhood safety, of wild youthful dreams that harmed no one. “I do not want that for her.”
Relationships: Man/Pregnant Elf
Comments: 18
Kudos: 56
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside), When Death Loves Flamingos





	vigil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Soulstoned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulstoned/gifts).



> If any of the worldbuilding here seems to resemble J.R.R. Tolkein's, I'm sure that's a total coincidence.

Taneth drove himself from sleep. He kicked up from the depths, bursting at last to the surface of wakefulness, and he lay there, listening to the sound of Grahn’s soft breath. It was late, he judged, hours past midnight with hours more until dawn. Even the babe in Taneth’s belly was still. The moon, nearly full, cast stark shadows across the wall.

He slid from the bed—from the warmth he and Grahn made in it—and took up his robe, slung carelessly over a chair the night before while Grahn’s impatient hands had roamed over him. Taneth put it on now and quietly slipped out to the balcony. The cool air braced him, scented of firs and the river below. For a moment, Taneth was gripped so firmly by memory that he felt he’d returned to childhood again.

The door at his back creaked open. Grahn could be nearly as silent as an elf when he tried, which meant he wasn’t trying now. A moment later, his arms threaded around Taneth’s waist, and his hands closed over Taneth’s belly. He hooked his chin over Taneth’s shoulder—he was just tall enough for it. “You’ll chill.”

Despite himself, Taneth smiled. “You mean _you’ll_ chill. Elves born in these mountains know no such discomfort.”

“So you say,” Grahn grumbled. His fingers played at the tie of Taneth’s robe. Slyly, he added, “You have to tie above the swell, now, eh?”

He sounded immensely pleased by this observation. It was true that Taneth could no longer comfortably tie his robe at the waist without it falling open at the chest—and, whatever his claims about elven hardiness, he’d rather face the night air clothed than not. Usually he’d have replied with a jest; now, suddenly, it was beyond him. An uncharacteristic shiver ran through him.

Grahn noticed. “You dreamed again.”

It was not a question, but then this was not the first time this had happened. “Not dreams,” Taneth said, as he had before. “Visions.”

“You don’t know they’re visions,” Grahn argued, as _he_ had before.

“Elven men don’t conceive unless there is some great trial coming to us, a time when we’ll be in need of miracles. This babe is meant for heroism and hardship, and I—” Taneth broke off, unable to continue. He took another long breath of that bracing air that smelled of home, of childhood safety, of wild youthful dreams that harmed no one. “I do not want that for her.” He’d dreamed of her, too, since the early days of his pregnancy: a girl with the bright hair of Taneth’s people and the sturdy smallness of Grahn’s, full of Grahn’s impishness and a boundless joy. 

Taneth gripped the railing. The promise of coming grief threatened to pull him under as surely as if he were floating on that river below, grown swollen and treacherous with the spring rains.

Grahn embrace tightened. “Tell me what you dreamed.”

It was not the first time he’d asked. “I’d not trouble you—”

“I’m _already_ troubled. You trouble me, Taneth. Let me share your burden, if—” A hesitation, a clearing of the throat. “If you think me worthy of it.”

Taneth twisted in Grahn’s arms. Fiercely, he said, “Your worthiness is not in question.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I am, after all, only a man.” Grahn said it lightly, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice, however he tried to hide it. “You know I would not begrudge you your elvish secrets, if you wished so much to keep them. Only—” He stopped, apparently at a loss.

“Only you would share my burdens,” Taneth finished. His heart felt swollen like the river.

“I would,” Grahn agreed. “If you’d let me, though I know that here at your own hearth, you have many better confidants than me available to you.”

“No,” Taneth said honestly. “Not a one.” He looked at Grahn, whose eyes shone in the moonlight, whose patience rivaled an elf’s and signified more, for Grahn had so many fewer years to be patient with—Taneth looked at him and could do nothing else but kiss him. This was what it meant to love Grahn, Taneth had found: to be beset by such impulses and to give in to them gladly.

Grahn smiled against Taneth’s mouth. “I do accept confidences of this kind also,” he murmured. His beard was a distracting, ticklish thing. “Though it must be said I prefer them indoors.”

“Indoors, then,” Taneth said, his heart still too tender for humor.

They lit no candles. Amid stark, moonlit shadows Grahn untied Taneth’s robe. He pushed it from Taneth’s shoulders and kissed him, sweet and tender. He pressed a hand to Taneth’s hip, and Taneth shivered at the brush of Grahn’s thumb over his belly. Perhaps Taneth had been wrong; he must have gone cold there on the balcony after all, or else the heat of Grahn’s touch wouldn’t have been such a shock, almost like a pain. There was no room for Taneth to despair when Grahn pressed so closely to him, kissing Taneth’s neck, letting his hands roam to spark along Taneth’s skin like the touch of metal on the driest, coldest day of winter.

They fucked in shadow, in that strange dream-time before dawn. They lay face-to-face with Taneth’s new bulk between them, and Grahn held their pricks together and worked them with his hand and a splash of oil for comfort. After, when Grahn had cleaned them both, he shifted down the bed to cup Taneth’s belly with both hands and brush his lips against the sensitive skin above the navel. Softly, he said, “Will you tell me now?”

“I would have told you before,” Taneth said, threading his fingers through Grahn’s hair. “Your bribe wasn’t necessary.”

Grahn laughed warm gusts of air against Taneth. “I’ll remind you that it was you who distracted us, not I.”

“I suppose it was,” Taneth said. He worked gentle circles in Grahn’s scalp with his fingertips. Grahn breathed quietly, waiting. He’d already shown he was willing to wait for Taneth a long time, by human reckoning. Taneth summoned his courage and said, “I saw her in battle. She was alone, surrounded by the slain. I cannot imagine they were all her foes. She was streaked with blood. Some of it was hers—she was badly injured. I believe she was near collapse—” Taneth’s throat closed, and he shut his eyes. 

“Taneth,” Grahn breathed. There was shifting of weight in the bed. A moment later, his lips brushed each of Taneth’s eyelids in turn. “I’m sorry, love. I’m sorry you must bear this.”

“I don’t know who she’s fighting,” Taneth said. “The fallen warriors’ armor—I don’t recognize it. The air is foul with magic. The sky is green, enough to make you ill looking at it.”

“You are sure it will come to pass?” Grahn said. He had never asked that before. He had never entertained the notion long enough. “You’ve had this—this vision before?”

“It varies,” Taneth admitted. “One is never quite the same as the next.”

“And are all the visions of this? War, bloodshed?”

“Not all,” Taneth hedged. 

“I don’t mean the ones of her as a child. Are there no others? Love, marriage, companions? A love of singing or leatherwork? Do you see nothing for our daughter but battle?” When Taneth didn’t answer, Grahn stroked along his thigh. “Taneth.”

Taneth swallowed to try and clear his throat of grief. “Only those. A childhood, and a war with some unknown enemy.” Grahn was quiet, and Taneth knew regret. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” Grahn demanded, hotly indignant. He shoved back up the bed, so that if there had been more light, Taneth could have clearly seen his face. “For—”

“For bearing this so poorly,” Taneth said. Grahn made a noise of disagreement. “No, elves know better than to mourn the future. Or—or that is what I was taught, what I long believed. We understand the long course of time as you men cannot, its currents running before and behind us, and we are meant to look on them with equanimity, but I can only think of her.”

“My foolish elf,” Grahn breathed, “who is held to be so wise. You love her.” He pressed his palm over that place where the babe was hidden. “Of course you fear for her.”

“I do,” Taneth agreed shakily. “I never wondered before what the father of a child of prophecy felt.”

Grahn considered this a while, stroking gently over the swell of Taneth’s belly. It was soothing. Despite the weight of Taneth’s fears, he was nearly asleep when Grahn said, “I agree with your elves.”

“Mm?”

“You say you do not grieve the future because time is too long, but I say we should not grieve the future because time is too short. Perhaps our daughter—” His voice caught, just for a moment, with that some wonder that still overcame Taneth sometimes. “—perhaps she is a herald of terrible things, like you say. Or perhaps she is not. You know I remain a skeptic when it comes to visions.” He pressed a quick kiss to Taneth’s mouth: an apology. “Either way, our time is too short to waste grieving what may never come to pass. I will sit vigil with you when these dreams come, but in between them, let us live in hope.”

“And there is the irrepressible optimism of men,” Taneth said. “I wondered where it had strayed.” He was overcome with sudden fondness. Perhaps it was due to the late hour, or perhaps the hand still cradling Taneth’s belly. How little Taneth had guessed of this future when he’d chosen, only a few years ago, to walk awhile beyond the mountains of his home. 

“You have not known very many men,” Grahn grumbled.

“I know the one I most care to know.”

“And there is my elf, the romantic,” Grahn said. He rummaged between them until he found Taneth’s hand, and he curled his fingers around it. “Let us sleep. Let us dream in hope, if we can.”

Grief still ached in Taneth’s throat, but not so strongly. He breathed deep of the scents of home and of Grahn, warm and solid and constant. “I will try, my love. I will try.”

[end]


End file.
